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George W. Bush’s book tour, interviews plugging his memoirs, has gotten low ratings on TV –– GREG MITCHELL reports on media and politics hits and misses — he writes the indispensable “Daybook” every morning at TheNation.com, and he’s the author of Campaign of the Century, the amazing story of Upton Sinclair’s run for governor in California in 1934.
Also: GAIL COLLINS, the New York Times op-ed columnist, traces women’s progress from the fifties to the present, from “My Little Margie” to Hillary for President — and Sarah Palin for Vice President. Her book When Everything Changed is out now in paperback. (originally broadcast 11/18/09)
Plus: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin: STEPHEN COHEN has spent 30 years interviewing Stalin’s victims, and talks about how they survived and their long struggle to obtain justice in Russia today. Steve’s new book is The Victims Return – he’ll be speaking and signing Friday Nov. 19 at 700pm at Book Soup on Sunset Strip.
More stuff to read: for the 40th anniversary of Doonesbury, “My favorite Doonesbury character, Mr. Butts” – at TheNation.com, HERE.
Of all the characters in the last 40 years of Doonesbury, my personal favorite is Mr. Butts—and not just because he appeared on the cover of The Nation (Jan. 1, 1996). Garry Trudeau has had lots of more compelling characters, but Mr. Butts in his own way was perfect: the smiling cigarette-man who was unfailingly cheerful about how cool it was for kids to smoke.
The election day exit polls had some good news for Obama: voters don’t blame him for “current economic problems.” But the same 
California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer defeated challenger Carly Fiorina by a ten-point margin on Tuesday, winning a total of 3.8 million votes, more than the combined vote total of ten Tea Party senate candidates.
California’s initiative to legalize marijuana failed to win a majority at the polls Tuesday. Prop 19, which received 3.3 million votes but lost 54 percent to 46 percent, would have would have legalized possession and cultivation of marijuana and authorized cities and counties to regulate and tax commercial marijuana production and sales.
When the votes are counted on Tuesday night in California, Democrats will easily sweep the top contests. Senator Barbara Boxer is likely to defeat challenger Carly Fiorina, 51-46 per cent (Nate Silver’s projection at 538.com), and last week’s California Field poll shows Democrat Jerry Brown ahead of Republican Meg Whitman in the gubernatorial race by 10 points.
As Californians prepare to vote Tuesday on a statewide initiative to legalize marijuana, The Jewish Journal, Los Angeles’s Jewish weekly, features a 
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